[bug #19337] Whish: Include Option to view first line of file/stream

[Allen Halsey]

Follow-up Comment #3, bug #19337 (project grep):

I've often wanted this functionality and would welcome a 'head' option to
grep. I feel it is similar to the A and B options in that it provides
additional context. '--head=2' would include the first two lines of STDIN.
'--head' would assume a default of 1 line.

In SQL, if I do:
  
  SELECT * from EMP;

I get column headers followed by the data. If I filter the rows by adding a
WHERE clause, I still get the column headers. Likewise, if I filter the output
of 'ps aux', I still want the column headers.

I did come up with a workaround:

$ ps aux | (read line; echo "$line"; grep foo)

On some systems, this can be shortened to:

$ ps aux | (head -1; grep foo)

but that didn't work consistently for me across all systems I work on. I
suspect it only works with the most recent versions of coreutils. (If someone
knows why, please add to the discussion.)

Allen Halsey


    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?19337>

_______________________________________________
  Message sent via/by Savannah
  http://savannah.gnu.org/